These Silent Hills
by The Layman
Summary: After a grueling night with the Nuckelavee, Team RNJR spends the night in Kuroyuri to rest and recover. Little do they know there won't be much of either in this place...
1. After the fight

The four of them were exhausted. The Grimm they just killed had been the toughest fight they had in a long while, and not just because it was stronger than them. With Qrow still suffering from his own fight with that crazy scorpion Faunus they'd needed to care for him as best they could until they could find medicine for his wound, and it was only sheer dumb luck that he hadn't gotten injured any further, leaving them more drained than they otherwise would have been.

In short, Team RNJR was _pooped_.

"So…," Ruby panted, "...is anyone else tired, or is it just me?"

Jaune responded by groaning as he fell to his knees. "I feel like I just survived playing dress up with my sisters…!" He allowed himself to fall back on the ground, "Except with fewer bows in my hair."

"Heh, yeah…," she agreed, giving a weak chuckle. Throughout their travels across Mistral Jaune had regaled them with stories from his childhood, which often ended with him as his sisters' plaything. Seeing the scraggly boy would be fine she turned to Ren and Nora; the pair were both sat against the nearest building, leaning against each other. "How about you guys!"

"We're fine," Nora called back, Ren nodding in agreement, "it was nothing!...wish I had some pancakes, though…."

"Nora, when I get my hands on the proper ingredients I'll make you guys the fluffiest pancakes imaginable," the dark haired man promised, giving his partner an appreciative squeeze around her shoulders.

Ruby smiled, finally allowing herself to join her friends on the ground. She glanced over at her uncle and frowned; he hadn't been touched by the fight, but he still looked worse for wear, and if he didn't get proper treatment soon she wasn't sure how much longer he would make it. Using Crescent Rose for support she climbed back to her feet. "OK guys," she addressed the group, "we should get moving as soon as we can; Haven can't be that much farther if we're already in Kuroyuri, so we should-"

"It's not," Ren spoke up abruptly, "if this place were that close to Haven we would have had Huntsmen to help us when that... _thing_ attacked originally." His eyes took on a hard edge when he mentioned the Grimm he just killed. "Besides," he continued, "I don't think any of us have the energy to travel anymore today."

"Plus it'll be night soon," Jaune added. "I didn't notice until just now, but the sun looks like it won't be up for much longer." He pointed to the horizon where the sun appeared like it was just about touch the earth.

"But…!" What her friend's were saying was true, even though Ruby sort of wished they weren't. She glanced between them and her Uncle Qrow, torn on what she should do; on one hand she had a ton of faith in her uncle and his prowess, but in the other hand it was clear that Qrow needed medicine that that they didn't have if he was to have the best chance of surviving his wound. She didn't like seeing him in so much pain, especially after everything that happened in the past year….

"Let's make camp here," Ren suggested, picking himself up, "we'll take a good look around in case there are any supplies that haven't been looted." He offered Nora a hand up, which the ginger girl gladly accepted. "After we get a good night's rest we can leave first thing in the morning."

"Are you sure about that?" Jaune wondered, "Didn't you want to skip over this place?"

Ren nodded once. "We've dealt with the reason why that was-" he glanced over to the spot where the Grimm met its last, "-I think we should be fine now." Nora put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

Ruby didn't feel the same way, unfortunately, and not just because she was anxious to get her uncle help. She couldn't quite explain it, but ever since they first set foot in Kuroyuri she'd had this steady feeling of otherworldly dread hanging about. She thought it was the Grimm once it showed up, but the the feeling persisted even with the creature slain, which meant it was something else, and that uncertainty was eating at her nerves.

" _Well_ …," she bopped her fingers together, " _maybe_ we can just go for a little bit longer-"

" _Ruby."_

Immediately Ruby holstered her weapon and rushed over to her uncle's side, kneeling down. "What is it, Uncle Qrow? Does anything hurt? Do you need your dressings changed? Are you out of whisky? Do you think we should- mmmff!" A finger prevented her lips from being used properly.

"I know you're worried about me," the veteran Huntsman said, not removing his finger, "but it'll take more than _this_ to do me in. I can survive at least one more night, and you four need to get some rest if you want to survive your _next_ fight." He removed his finger from his niece's lips and gestures for Ren's attention. "I may have been out of it for a while, but you said you used to live here, right?"

"I did," Ren affirmed.

"Great, then go take your girlfriend and see if you can find anything we could use right now: food, medicine, booze, or any combination of the three. I'm honestly not very picky at the moment…." He tried to chuckle, but it instead came out as a coughing fit, causing Ruby to fret more.

"A-actually," Nora stammered, "we're not-" Her protest was cut off as Ren took her hand and started leading her through the village.

Qrow's coughing fit ended almost as quickly as it started, and once it did he turned his attention to Jaune. "Get a fire going, would ya?"

"With what?" he asked, "There's only, like, one tree."

Qrow rolled his eyes, " _The buildings_ , you dunce! No one's coming back to this place, so we might as well put the houses to some use."

Jaune eyes the older Huntsman warily but didn't complain, heading off to gather kindling.

"...what about me?" wondered Ruby. She felt somewhat useless when there wasn't a Grimm to fight, and running really, really fast didn't help her uncle in his condition. She didn't really want to leave him unattended either, even if that meant she'd basically just be sitting around. "Is there something I can do?"

"Yeah, there is," he said, "keep an eye out for Grimm while I take a little nap."

Ruby nodded; at least it was something, even if it amounted to basically sitting around. "OK." She took out Crescent Rose again and shifted it to its rifle form, resting it against her shoulder as she settled in next to her uncle.

 _Man, I wish Zwei were here…_

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

It turned out there was a lot of loose wood just lying around in the abandoned village. Not that it didn't make sense, Jaune had realized early on, considering the pattern of destruction kept in line with the one or two other villages they'd seen that suffered attack from the Creatures of Grimm. Many of the pieces of wood he found looked like they really did use to be part of the structures around here, which meant a few times he needed to use Crocea Mors to chop them up into a size he could carry.

His thoughts once again turned to Pyrrha while he searched, like they usually did when he was by himself. Specifically they returned to that moment during the fall of Beacon when she kissed him, the moment when he finally realized how she felt about him. It was so ironic: he'd been basically oblivious to her affections, and when he finally got a damn clue about her feelings towards him it was too late, and he'd never get another chance to do things differently.

"Damn it…," he cursed, striking a particularly stubborn plank with greater than necessary force and lodging the blade into the stiff wood. Pulling back on it only served to highlight just _how_ stuck it was. He braces his leg against the board and yanked with all his might, successfully freeing his weapon at the cost of losing his balance, the uneven ground doing his back no favors as he landed.

He laid there, silently cursing... _whatever_ as tears started to gather in the corner of his eyes.

"Why…?" he asked the heavens, hoping for an answer he knew deep down he would never receive, "Why did Pyrrha have to die?"

As expected, nothing answered back.

He'd been an idiot, a stupid, lovesick boy who spent so much time pursuing an impossible dream that he failed to notice how close another was. While they eventually became friends, Weiss made it very clear that she never held any romantic intentions for him, whereas Pyrrha….

He wiped away the tears and got back to his feet, resuming his deconstruction work; it was better to push those thought away for the moment. Team JNRR (or was it RNJR…?) needed a campfire, and moping around like a baby wasn't going to help with that.

A short while later he added the new wood to his already sizable pile, looking back at the house he's taken it from one last time. Considering the state the surrounding buildings were in this one seemed comparatively well off; it was still mostly intact, albeit looking like it had definitely seen better days. It didn't look like it was about to collapse, and he hadn't crossed paths with Ren and Nora in their search yet, so they likely hadn't been by here yet. Maybe it was worth checking the place out? He set the bundle of wood by the door so he could grab it in his way out and stepped inside, pushing aside the remains of the front door.

Inside the house was about as well preserved as the outside, though somehow even more eerie. There was still a couple pieces of artwork on the walls, faded and tattered, there were bits of pottery and other detritus scattered on the floor, and the furniture around the place was usually somewhere between "unusable" to "utterly wrecked".

It was a far cry from the state of near perpetual mess his family's home was usually in.

He made his way through the house, opening any drawers or cabinets he came across that somehow managed to stay intact. Suprisingly, they also contained what were most likely their original contents, though mostly it was knickknacks or other things not on Qrow's short list he gave. The kitchen area was ultimately the most fruitful place he searched, even though all he found there were a can of brussel sprouts and a mostly empty bottle of saké that had probably been used for cooking.

There wasn't much of a second floor to this place, and what did remain amounted to a linen closet and what was probably someone's bedroom. In the spirit of being thorough he checked the bedroom, which came up empty.

He was about to check the linen closet when he heard a rattling noise from inside. It might have only been his already on edge nerves that caused him to draw Crocea Mors as fast as he did, but given how it was the only sound since the Grimm fight that he or one of his friends _didn't_ make, it didn't really matter. He crept forward, sword held in front of him, until he reached the door. Cautiously, he reached for the handle, grasping it gingerly and giving it a gentle tug-

He yelped and jumped backwards as a pack of rats burst from the open door, scurrying off to who knows where. Jaune certainly didn't, he was too busy trying to keep his heart from bursting through his ribcage.

"It was...just rats…," he panted, "...yeah, just some harmless little rats. Heh heh…!" He continued talking to no one as he reattached Crocea Mors to his belt, "I mean, it's not there's anything here anymore that could _really_ hurt me; what kind of Grimm could fit in there, anyway? ...oh right, Rapier Wasps." Upon that realization he stopped and pressed his ear to the door, listening for a moment. When he couldn't make out any other sounds he let out a sigh of relief and opened the door the rest of the way.

He wasn't prepared for the rotting, mangled corpse of Pyrrha Nikos to suddenly reach out and grab him by the throat, he blank, dead eyes somehow staring at him with a very uncharacteristic, burning rage.

It shouted in a raspy voice " _Why did you let me die?!_ "

In light of this, no one could really blame Jaune for screaming like a little girl, could they?

 _to be continued…_

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

 _Hello everyone, and welcome to my newest RWBY story. As you can no doubt tell, this is going to be a much more Horror focused tale than what I usually write in the fandom, and is something I haven't really done in a long while._

 _If you look back in the list of stories I've published you'll see that I used to write Horror a lot more, but as far as RWBY is concerned I've mostly stuck to more lighthearted subject matter, notable exceptions being "Stages" and "Melt", With Horror like elements only popping up briefly in certain Fics to serve the greater narrative. This is because, for a while, I didn't feel comfortable writing darker stories so soon after Monty Oum's untimely passing, and I was still relatively new to the Fandom, and this only had a basic understanding of all the characters._

 _Now though, I feel I've grown enough as a writer and RWBY fan to attempt something like this and still do justice to the Almighty Creator's passion project. Considering this is supposed to be set right after the Nuckelavee Grimm fight at the end of Volume 4 I'm taking a couple creative liberties to make the premise work, but they're relatively minor changes (RNJR and Qrow are rescued immediately following the battle) in the grand scheme of the show's plot, so very little in regard to character personalities and behaviors should stray terribly out of character._

 _But yeah, dat ending doh. Stay tuned to find out what happens next!_

 _Also, check out my YouTube channel "The Layman" for nerdy stuff, sub to my Twitch "the layman" for video games, support me in P a treon "/ thelayman" to help get more content quicker, and follow me on Twitter "(a) the_layman215" for updates on everything and lotsa RWBY fanart._


	2. The nerves, they fray

It felt weird being back here, and not just because she used to live here for a short time. Honestly? Nora hadn't stayed in Kuroyuri all that long before the night of the attack. After the adrenaline wore off from the fight with the Grimm there was this nebulous, uneasy feeling that failed to leave her alone. She could tell Ruby felt it too, given how fidgety she was acting earlier, not that she blamed the younger girl; there was just something about being here that got under your skin, but it was frustrating because you couldn't really place _why_ that was.

Oh well, at least Ren was here, so that made things a little bit better.

" _Hellooooooo…?_ " she called out, poking her head into a mostly intact barrel that smelt slightly of Ruby's uncle, "Any Grimm in there?" Satisfied when nothing growled back she pulled back out. "Find anything yet, Ren?" she asked.

He best friend shook his head. "Nothing yet," he called back, "have you?"

"Nah, not since that first aid kit a while back." She sighed, letting herself plop to the ground. "It's been almost ten years, so you think there's even anything left?"

"I'm not sure; I'm hoping that Kuroyuri's reputation will have kept scavengers away. I think Qrow's hoping for that as well." He joined Nora on the ground, "Let's rest for a minute then head back; I feel we've found all we're going to in this direction." He held up the kit for emphasis, "At least we can make sure Qrow's wound doesn't get infected."

"Yeah…." She nodded in agreement to Ren's statement, then chuckled when she imagined the grizzled Huntsman demanding to drink the rubbing alcohol in the kit."

"Hm? What's so funny?"

"Nothing.~" Once her giggle fit passed she looked up at Ren. "So...I've been _thinking_ …."

"What about?"

" _About us."_ she wanted to say, but held her tongue. She wanted to know if he wanted to stop being just good friends and start being " _together_ together", to throw away the pretense and just be a couple. It was something she'd thought about over the past few years, but never really had the courage to bring up with him; if it wasn't one excuse that kept her from asking then it was another, and it was only after fighting that Grimm did she realize that it was possible to lose him at any moment and never have the opportunity to see what could be. Right after their hard fought victory hadn't really been the right time to broach the subject, but now that they were more removed from the event….

Except she suddenly found she couldn't look him in the eye anymore. Wanting to take the next step in their relationship was one thing, but actually _taking_ that step? In some ways it was more scary than fighting a _million_ Grimm, at least she knew how they felt about her.

She turned her eyes back to the ground. "Well...you know how we've been together for practically forever?"

"Yeah."

"Well…." Oh gawd, why was this so hard? She knew what Ren was like; he was the most dependable guy on the planet, willing to put up with her weirdness and stand by her through thick and thin! He wouldn't suddenly up and leave if she confessed to him...right? "...I was thinking that...we could've _died_ today."

"That's true…."

"And I've been thinking- ever since the day Beacon fell, really- that we shouldn't let opportunities slip by, because who knows when they'll come around again."

She heard him grunt in affirmation.

"And...I think we have one of those opportunities _now_." She somehow managed to lift her gaze to meet his again, here eyes glistening with hope. "Ren...I lo-"

Her confessions was abruptly cut off when a shrill, girlish scream pierced the silence, ruining the moment.

"Jaune's in trouble!" Ren immediately deduced. He shot to his feet and pulled Nora up alongside him, then headed in the direction of the scream.

If it weren't for the fact that their friend and leader (even though Ruby was technically in charge of Team RNJR) was in some kind of distress Nora would have been a bit ticked off that someone/something had interrupted her and Ren's moment. It wasn't like she'd been struggling to tell him how she truly felt about him for years, battling the constant fear that such a confession would ruin their friendship, _totally not_! And it _totally_ wasn't like there seemed to be some unseen hand shoved between them every time she tried, no! That'd be crazy!

Regardless, once they made sure Jaune was still alive she was going to drag Ren behind a bush or a rock or whatever and let him know just how she truly felt.

It took them a minute to find where Jaune was, and thankfully his constant shrieks of fright helped guide them to a still fairly intact house with a pile of scrap wood out front.

"Jaune?" Ren called out, pausing just inside to bring out his pistols.

"Hey Jaune!" Nora called from behind him, "You in here, buddy?"

Shrill, wordless cries were the answer answer either teen got.

They immediately split up, a brief nod of understanding passing between them; Ren took off to the left, while Nora made her way to the back of the house. Since they'd still be well within earshot of each other they could afford to take the risk, and since Ruby was still guarding her uncle they were the only backup for each other, so finding Jaune was a higher priority than keeping the Buddy System intact; if one of them still needed help after finding Jaune, the other would find them soon enough.

And sure enough, Nora barely gave the back room a full sweep when she somehow heard Ren announce over the shrieking "I found him!" from a couple rooms over. I'm no time she found herself by the bottom of the stairs, with her partner holding onto Jaune, who'd exchanges his shrieking for hyperventilating, though it looked like he was starting to calm down a bit.

And it was a good thing they found him in relatively good condition, because it only just dawned on her that she forgot to bring out Magnhild when they got here.

Whoops.

"Jaune, it's OK now, we're right here." Ren has both hands on Jaune's shoulders, keeping his voice measured as he brought Jaune down from his fright. "Whatever it is, it's gone now."

Nora felt a small twinge of nostalgia as she recalled Ren saying that to her years ago when they were both still kids.

After another minute Jaune's breathing evened out and he looked up at the two of them, slightly confused. "What are you guys doing here?"

Ren answered simply "We heard you scream."

"Yeah, we were nearby," Nora clarified, "what happened?"

An unreadable expression passed over Jaune's face. "It was…," he started to say, before trailing off. "...never mind, i-it was nothing." He shrugged Ren's hands off and stood adjusting his armor, "It was just a spider."

"Not that we have any reason to doubt you, but are you sure about that?" Ren asked, "If it was a Rachnid, then there may be more."

Nora winced at the mention of the spider like Grimm. She had more than a few memories about the creatures, and almost none of them were pleasant.

"It wasn't a Grimm; I just walked into a cobweb and it startled me, that's all." He sighed. "I've got a bunch of wood for a fire, let's just get back to camp." His answer given, he headed towards the front door.

Though she didn't make a move to stop him Nora could tell Jaune was lying, or at the very least not telling them the whole truth, and it was a good bet Ren thought the same. Everyone had their fears, even Jaune, though he usually (albeit unsuccessfully) kept them hidden under machismo. Small bugs weren't one of those fears- if anything, they were Pyrrha's- so whatever it was that scared him wasn't something he wanted to talk about, that was fine. She wouldn't pursue the subject.

No matter how insanely curious about it she got.

Besides, there was still the matter of her and Ren having some "quality" time with each other.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

The mood didn't really improve when the three of them returned to the campsite, I.e. the spot where Qrow decided to plop down and rest in; Jaune simply tossed the wood next to Qrow and announced "I'm gonna go train for a little bit." before heading off on his own.

"You kids find anything?" the older man asked, to which Ren presented the first aid pack he found. "...you _sure_ there wasn't any booze laying around?"

The remaining three teens gave him knowing looks.

"What? It makes good antiseptic in a pinch."

The looks persisted.

"I would have saved _some_ for emergencies…."

Ruby shook her head and sighed. "Good grief, Uncle Qrow…."

He grinned and rubbed her head before addressing the other two teenagers. "So what's the matter with Golden Boy; he trip over a skeleton or something?"

"We don't know," Ren answered, "we thought he was in trouble, and when we went to check it out he was practically hysterical."

"We thought it might have been a Grimm, but he said it wasn't," supplied Nora. She then tapped her chin, "Come to think of it, I don't remember there being any signs that he was fighting anything, and he didn't have his sword out either…."

"He _said_ he just ran into a spider web," Ren clarified, the unspoken implications of the statement quite clear.

Qrow chuckled, "The he probably just got spooked and fell down some stairs or something; the secret about men is that we're actually pretty fragile creatures and we'll say anything to save face." He shifted his position to something more upright. "Don't bother the poor kid about it when he gets back. Now...we have firewood, so how about a hot meal?"

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

By the time Jaune returned to the campsite most of the meager food was gone, though Ruby made sure to set aside a portion for him. He accepted it with a brief "Thanks…" and consumed it mostly in silence, save for the sounds one usually makes when they eat.

The uneasy still hadn't lifted, and Jaune's sudden melancholy wasn't really helping Ruby feel any better. Just glancing at Ren and Nora told her that they felt the same: they were both worried about their friend, but neither really knew what to do about it.

 _I wish I knew what was causing this_ , she wondered, picking her beans, _then we could just deal with it and fix Uncle Qrow up enough for us to make it to Haven._ She hated that her uncle's wound wasn't healing, even though the man still had Aura left. She briefly thought about trying to let him borrow some of hers to accelerate the process, but abandoned the idea when she realized she had absolutely no idea how to go about doing that. _Wouldn't that be nice, if one of us could heal the others…._

"So…," she said in an attempt to break the prevalent awkward silence that hung over the group, "Um…what was this place like before...before the Grimm attacked it?" She didn't want to bring back painful memories for her friends, but unfortunately she couldn't think of anything better to break the ice.

Ren took it upon himself to answer. "It was a lot like the other towns we've visited, though sizably bigger. Most of it was farms, but there was also a market and a section for residential housing," he explained. Ruby thought she could detect a slight hint of melancholy in his voice. "Not everyone who lived here was nice-" He took Nora's hand. "-but enough of them were." Nora then rested her head on his arm.

Honestly, that _was_ like most of the towns and villages Team RNJR had passed through in their travels. It made sense, actually; it wasn't like every new place had to have some gimmick that made it unique. Ruby didn't really know what she was expecting, except maybe something less…"ordinary" than what was described. Not that Patch was all that different when you thought about it, but at least it had Signal Academy….

Not wanting things to lapse back into awkwardness she switched tactics, shoveling another spoonful of beans in her mouth. "Fo did you bofe gwow up vere?" she asked.

Ren shook his head. "I did, Nora only came here a few weeks before the attack."

"I never really stayed in one place for very long," the ginger girl added, "at least before I met Renny here." She sent a tender smile up to him, which he returned by patting the hand he held.

Ruby swallowed her food and turned to Jaune. It looked like he'd barely touched his food, stirring it around aimlessly. "How about you, Jaune? What was it like where you grew up?"

"Hmm?" He looked up from his food, a troubled expression hanging on his face. "I dunno. It was normal, I guess." Then he went back to studying the ground.

 _Huh, Guess whatever happened earlier is still bothering him…._

"...it was pretty nice growing up in Patch," she said, keeping the conversation going; the feeling of unease was still omnipresent, but talking help take her mind off it, if only slightly. "We did have to worry the Grimm attacking every now and then, but between Uncle Qrow, my dad and the other teachers at Signal it wasn't ever too big a problem. We had a small movie theatre with a neat little arcade, even if it was only about ten games in it." After that the conversation was mostly dominated by Nora regaling them with massively exaggerated tales of her and Ren's various video game conquests, with the stoic boy chiming in every few seconds to correct his friend.

Ruby half paid attention to the hyperbole, instead eying Jaune as he continued to stir his meal. There was a part of her that wanted to ask what was wrong, to go out and find the thing that hurt him and deal it- or violently murder it if it was a Grimm- but per her Uncle's council she held her tongue and let him be.

She recalled their time at Beacon when Jaune was being harassed by Cardin Winchester, how he hadn't wanted to worry the others by making a big deal of it. Granted, it all ended up working out in the end, but the events of the past six months had changed then into different people than they were back then, Jaune more than the rest, in a way. Pyrrha...well, for what little he said about what happened before she went to fight Cinder it was clear that he had more reason than most to mourn her passing. Would he ever want to talk about it? Maybe, but the couple times she'd tried to broach the subject with him he shut those attempts down, so she was willing to wait until he felt ready.

And it seemed like this was going to be a similar situation.

"...so then Ren finds this _super secret level_ -"

"It was a bonus stage," he amended.

"-putting him against, like, _50_ super tough bosses-"

"There were three, and they were more like midbosses."

"-so with only a dinky little peashooter and thirty seconds on the clock-!"

"Three minutes, actually."

Nora turned to glare at her friend, "You want me to tell this story or not?"

"I'd rather you tell it properly."

"Well _excuse me_ for wanting to make it sound more exciting!" she pouted, folding her arms over the heart shaped transom in her shirt.

"Lying about details isn't 'exciting', it's deceptive."

"Then maybe that's just how I remember things happening, huh? You ever think of that?"

"Then maybe you need to get your memory looked at."

" _Yeah..._ I think we got the idea," Ruby interjected, trying to break up the bickering that suddenly erupted out of nowhere between Ren and Nora. Which was weird, because she remembered them being a lot more affectionate and sweet to each other earlier, and pretty much ever since she first met them, so why were they arguing now? It was weird and compounded the odd feeling she had. "So…," she tried to continue, but unfortunately she couldn't really think of anything else to talk about; the atmosphere had become too awkward. "Um...I need to go to the bathroom!" she blurted out, shooting to her feet. She hoped Nora picked up on the "girl code", as Yang had called it, and came with her, if only to briefly separate the two childhood friends so they could cool down a bit.

Thankfully her gamble paid off and Nora rose to her feet a second after she did. "You know," the ginger girl said, "I think _I_ need to go to the bathroom too!" Ruby couldn't help but feel the statement was directed at Ren, especially with the annoyed glare Nora sent his way. "C'mon Ruby, let's find a spot where we can have some _privacy._ "

This was addressed to the group at large, which was sixty percent boys. (Including her uncle.)

Come to think of it, she could just barely Nora holding up her skirt when she and Ren were hanging from that Grimm….

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

Once the two girls found a secluded spot Ruby shuffled nervously in place, kicking the ground and rubbing her arm. "So yeah, I _sorta_ didn't need to-"

"Why did I do that?" Nora said abruptly, letting her fall fall into her hands. Then she dropped to her knees, her arms going limp, "I was just trying to cheer everyone up…."

Oh. Well, OK then. Apparently Nora skipped a few steps and had gone right to remorse for her actions. Which, while it meant that she didn't have to flounder trying to convince Nora to apologize for losing her temper, the sudden 180 degree turn was still odd even by _her_ standards. Seriously, not even thirty seconds ago the normally perky girl looked ready to pound some innocent tree into the dirt if it looked at her funny! It wasn't unappreciated, but definitely weird.

"It's OK," Ruby said, moving next to her friend. She put a comforting hand on Nora's shoulder, "We've all been a little stressed, and fighting that Grimm probably didn't help much." She gave the shoulder a light pat, "I'm sure Ren was just tired."

"Maybe...but he never yelled at me like that before…."

 _That was "yelling"?_ Ruby wondered.

"I don't know what happened," the ginger girl continued, "it was like…all of a sudden I felt super angry, like I wanted to yell at Ren cuz he kept interrupting me."

"Yeah, that _was_ a little weird…."

Nora shook her head. "I just...I wish I could take back the last five minutes and pretend they never happened…."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

 _Hmm...things are brewing, aren't they? What are they? What things could be bubbling up?_

 _Now, that would be telling, wouldn't it?_

 _(No long A/N this time, since that would go against the point of a Suspense story. Just wanted to let y'all know that going forward.)_


	3. High tension

"I wish there was a way I could make it so that last five minutes hadn't happened," bemoaned Ren. He was sitting by the fire with his hands folded on front of him, poking at it with a stick. "I shouldn't have yelled at her like I did…"

"That was yelling?" quipped Qrow from the other side fire, "I think I've _whispered_ louder trying not to wake Yang up when she was a baby."

Neither boy paid the older Huntsman any mind. Both were more wrapped up in their own troubles, and, weird as it was, Qrow's sardonic brand of jokes had more or less become background noise.

"Ren, it's _Nora,"_ Jaune stated, "she'll probably forget all about it when she and Ruby come back. ...n-not that I'm saying sea stupid or anything, she's not! I'm just…."

"It's fine," Ren reassured his friend, "I know what you mean." He knew Nora wasn't the type to hold grudges, no matter how much her constant eagerness to break legs said otherwise; most of the time she either dealt with the problem immediately (often with violence) or she just paid it no mind. Aside from the _very_ short list of things she took personally, nothing really seemed to negatively faze her, which was something he'd always appreciated about his childhood friend.

And that was what bothered him about all this. He normally enjoyed her exuberance, and even the way she could make the most mundane of events seem like something exciting...but for some reason this was the one time she turned an anthill into a mountain that he decided " _No, you need to tell it right"_. It hadn't even been something that built up over time, either: one minute he was tending the fire, and the next he was calling her stupid and forgetful.

"Geez," Qrow spike up again, "I know this isn't the most _festive_ of places, but you kids are just being _depressing_ right now." He sat up a light straighter, "How about I tell you some dirty jokes that would make the girls blush if they were here"

Jaune looked up at the older man, caution plastered on his face. "I though Ruby was your niece; you want to hear stuff like that?"

Qrow chuckled, "Oh _hell_ no! That kid's too innocent for her own good sometimes, she probably short circuit if I told one of my jokes." Then he adopted a contemplative pose, scratching his chin with one hand while he propped up his elbow with the other. "Then again, maybe it's time she lost some of that naïveté…."

 _Well that's...unsettling, to say the least,_ Ren thought, his thoughts mirroring the aghast expression Jaune now wore.

" _I'm joking_ ," Qrow quickly amended, "Sheesh, a guy tries to lighten the mood a little…."

"We're back!" Ruby announced as she and a melancholy looking Nora returned to the meager campsite. "...is everything OK here?" she asked.

"Fine, if boring," Qrow answered, shrugging, "How about you two?"

Ruby glanced over at Nora, who'd unceremoniously plopped down by the fire and was aimlessly stirring her food. "Well, Nora's not angry anymore, so there's that."

And indeed, it seemed like Nora's earlier vitriol had all but vanished, replaced with whatever seemed to be plaguing Jaune during dinner.

"How about you?" Ruby glanced back to her uncle, specifically the makeshift bandages wrapped around his torso, "Does it still hurt?"

Qrow shook his head. "Nah, no more than it normally does, anyhow. I'll be fine." His expression softened a little when he noticed how crestfallen Ruby looked at the news. "So we couldn't find any medicine, big deal. It's not like I'll croak in the night or anything; I've had worse injuries than this." He chuckled sardonically, "More disappointed about the booze, honestly…."

"OK then…." Ruby didn't sound convinced, but refained from further comments as she sat back down and tucked into what was left in her bowl. Nora seemed like she wanted to say something, but that desire would always die before she opened her mouth.

The rest of their supper was eaten in an oppressive silence, only broken by the clinking of utensils.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

After dinner was finished Ruby offered to do the washing, if only to give herself some time to think. She worried about her friends and Uncle, but a therapist she was not, so she didn't know what she could do to put everything back to the way it was before coming to Kuroyuri.

First it had been something with Jaune- she still didn't know the details of what went down- that turned him moody. Sure, ever since meeting Uncle Qrow he'd been more solemn and less cheery than normal, but he'd still cracked the occasional joke, even if it wasn't that good. (Still better than Yang's puns, by a long shot!) Now he seemed lost in his own world, only responding when someone spoke to him first.

Then there was...whatever had happened with Ren and Nora. By all accounts the two of them were closer than ever after Beacon and what happened afterwards; whatever arguing she could remember them doing was always light and about silly things that didn't seem important. In fact, this was the only time she could ever recall _Ren_ raising his voice to Nora (as raised as Lie Ren got, at least…) or sounded angry at her. And _they'd_ seemed perfectly before dinner, so whatever was affecting Jaune probably wasn't responsible for... _that_.

And there was still that constant feeling of...she couldn't actually describe what it was like, all she knew was that it was a bad feeling, like something bad was going to happen it they didn't leave this place. It was unclear if the others felt it too, but even if they did...and the most frustrating part was that she had _no idea_ what was causing it, either. "It" could very well be what was responsible for everyone acting so weird, but without proof it was nothing but a theory.

At least Uncle Qrow seemed to be fine. You know, for having a giant hole in his stomach.

There was a well not too far from where they made camp, and Ruby could still see everyone clearly, so if anything happened to either her or the others they'd know. She finished scrubbing the bowl she was scrubbing and dunked it in the bucket before setting it to dry on the lip of the well and grabbing another to repeat the process.

She shrieked a little when she suddenly felt a crawling sensation on her thigh, immediately leaping to her feet and batting at her leg. This managed to make the crawling sensation stop, but now the culprit, a good sized spider, was attached to the hand she'd swatted with.

" _Ew, gross!_ " she cried, furiously shaking her hand in an attempt to dislodge her little stowaway. This didn't have any significant effect, so in desperation she plunged her hand into the bucket of water. Not that she was scared of spiders- not as much as Pyrrha had been, anyhow- but she doubted anyone else would enjoy one crawling across their hand like this one had. After leaving said appendage submerged for a good minute she finally pulled it out, this time sans spider.

She let out a sigh of relief.

" _Everything OK over there, sport?"_ her uncle lazily called over to her.

"Uh, y-yeah, everything's fine!" she called back, "It was just a bug!"

" _Sissy!"_ the man retorted with no real malice behind it.

Once her pounding heart calmed down a bit more Ruby checked to make sure there weren't any other spiders or bugs crawling around the immediate area and, satisfied there weren't, finished wiping down the bowls, pouring the used water out on the ground.

She hadn't gotten a good look at the arachnid before drowning it, but thankfully she didn't remember seeing any bone like plates that the Grimm had; there _was_ a spider like Grimm that was considered dangerous despite its small size, but she'd only seen it in textbooks, never in the wild. It was apparently quite rare, and for that she was thankful, since a bite from a Rachnae was fatal.

Needless to say, Ruby would probably be checking her sleeping bag _extra_ careful tonight.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

The rest of the evening amounted to more of the what happened at dinner: awkward silence and vain attempts by either Ruby or Qrow to incite conversation.

If Jaune wasn't so mentally exhausted he would have probably found it more annoying than it actually was.

He lay in his sleeping bag- Ruby insisted they thoroughly check them for bugs- staring up at the night sky, the memory of earlier replaying itself in his mind. Once the shock wore off he saw that there wasn't the rotting corpse of his late friend (and possibly even paramour) grabbing his hoodie, and there were only himself, Ren and Nora in the house. While somepart of him knew that the scene was probably just due to him still being exhausted from the fight before the image of Pyrrha's face, her deathly pallor, the way half of her mouth was just bone...all of that refused to leave him alone.

Why had he seen that, though? Honestly, Ruby probably had more reason to be haunted by thoughts of the dead Huntress since she was apparently right there when Pyrrha was killed, but then again Pyrrha hadn't kissed _her_ right before shoving her in a locker and running off to what was mostly likely an impossible fight.

He sighed and turned over to his side, his head resting in the crook of his arm. Maybe this was all just stress and he needed to sleep it off. From what he could tell that horse and rider Grimm had brought out some intense emotions in everyone, and there was still an injured Huntsman with them, so maybe a good night's rest would do the trick and they'd all be back to there old selves come the morning.

He closed his eyes, prepared to surrender to his sleepiness, but even though he felt tired enough to fall asleep his body refused to comply. Shifting his position around didn't help and only served to make him _less_ comfortable in some cases. Counting sheep like his mom usually advised was also useless, only making him wonder why sheep were jumping over a fence in the first place.

Once again, Jaune let out a frustrated sigh; apparently not even his own mind and body would allow him a respite for today.

" _Trouble sleeping_?"

"Yeah…," he grunted, "Nothing is working."

" _Have you tried counting sheep_?"

He shrugged, "That was the first thing I tried."

" _Hmm...well, maybe you just need some company. Here…._ "

He felt a pressure as someone laid down next to him, putting their arm over him.

" _It may not be your bunny pajamas_ , _but this is still comfortable, right_?"

He nodded, humming in agreement.

" _Tell me what's bothering you_ , _Jaune_. _I don't like seeing you upset_."

"It's...it's nothing," he said with so little conviction that even _he_ didn't believe himself. "...OK, it's not 'nothing'; you shouldn't have died at Beacon, not after…." He glanced up at the stars again, "You shouldn't have gone to fight Cinder after...after telling me you loved me. That was just cruel."

" _Would you have done any differently in my place_ ; _if you didn't know if you would love to see the next hour_ , _wouldn't you want to make the most of what time you had left_?"

"I would have traded places with you in a heartbeat," Jaune insisted, "I would have gone with you to fight her, I would have...I would have done _something_!"

" _Oh Jaune_... _you couldn't have done anything_."

"You don't know that! I could've-"

" _No_ , _you couldn't. You're still barely able to fight the Grimm_ ; _your friends do most of the fighting while you sit on the sidelines and play cheerleader_."

This cut deeper than Jaune would have liked to admit, and what made it worse was that it wasn't exactly wrong, either. Despite his time at Beacon and all months of practical experience he'd gained after that, honestly, he still wasn't at the level the rest of Team RNJR was.

"That's not true…."

" _You known it is_ , _it's no use denying it any longer_ ; _you're still just a child playing at being an adult_ , _a boy who put on his father's clothes and demanded to be called a man_."

It wasn't! Or, at least, he didn't want to believe it.

But...when he thought about it, did he even have a _chance_ of reaching Ruby's level? Or Ren's? Or even Nora's? He'd basically lied his way into Beacon; most of his victories could easily be considered dumb luck, and any that weren't more than likely involved his friends help in some way.

So why was he even out here helping Ruby in the first place if all he was to the team was a liability? He didn't even know what his Semblance was, or if it had been unlocked at all! He wouldn't ever say it aloud, but he'd always been a little jealous if his friends because of that.

" _They're holding you back_ , _you know_."

"Who are?"

" _Your friends_ , _of course_! _They're what's keeping you from getting stronger_! _Always keeping you to the side_ , _always stealing the kills for themselves_... _you'll never grow stronger if you remain in their shadows_ …!"

That...that couldn't be true, could it? It didn't seem in character for Ruby, Nora, Ren, or even Qrow in the brief time he'd known the older Huntsman, but _especially_ Ruby; the girl didn't have a malicious bone in her body, and at times had been there to comfort and support him.

" _She left me to die_ , _you know_."

"...who did?"

" _Your friend_ ; _she was there when I was fighting_ , _but did nothing to stop my death from happening_. _Is she really your friend if she just stood by and let me die_?"

Ruby? Sure, she hadn't gotten to Pyrrha in time to save her, but that didn't mean she'd left her to die; the school had apparently been overrun with Grimm, White Fang troops, and out of control robots, it was no wonder Ruby didn't make it if she had to deal with all that on the way.

So then, why the insistence that she would sit back and allow a friend to be killed?

He'd had these kinds of thoughts before, aftermath of the fighting, but he eventually decided that it wasn't Ruby's fault he lost a friend. Many people probably lost friends in that attack, it just so happened His was on top of Beacon, trying to stop the woman responsible. Her loss still hurt, but moping about it wouldn't do the world any good, not if he could do something to rectify it.

 _So why was Pyrrha saying these things about Ruby?_

" _It would be better if you got rid of her_ , _make her feel what I felt when I was gasping for breath_ , _teach her a lesson for doing nothing to save me_!"

Jaune spun around to his side, now facing his tempter; it was the same as before, with Pyrrha's face deathly pale and half rotted, half of her jaw bone naked for the world to see. The rest of her face was twisted into a wicked, devious, yet still somehow demure smile.

" _It'll be easy_ ; _she's asleep_ , _and blades pierce through skin quite nicely when their Aura isn't active_."

She tried to grab at him, but it was lazy and his reflexes were more than adequate to pin her arms to the ground.

"You're not Pyrrha!" he accused, kneeling atop the apparition of his late friend and partner, "I don't know what you are, but the Pyrrha I knew would _never_ want anyone killed, no matter how much they might deserve it; least of all Ruby!"

The apparition chuckled, a raspy, wet sound. " _I haven't said anything you weren't already thinking_.~"

Whatever this thing was, Jaune hated it. He hated it more than anything else he'd ever hated in his life; not just because of the things it was saying (and implying), but because it was wearing Pyrrha's face and using it to say them. It was a feeling of hatred so intense he felt like he was going to explode if he didn't do something!

He wasn't left wondering for long; the apparition tried to lean forward to bite him, so, without time to think, he rammed his head into the thing's, cracking their skills together with an audible " _thud!"_. This left it stunned, and Jaune capitalized on the opportunity. Letting go of its arms, he clamped both of his hands into fists and starting punching it, falling into an easy rhythm.

He was so focused on the thing that he only became aware of everything else around him when Ren grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms to his side. "That's enough, Jaune!" the other boy shouted. "What the hell were you doing to Nora?"

As the adrenaline fades from his system he glanced back at where he'd been trying to sleep, his face morphing from one of anger to one of pure shock: Ruby was giving him a steely eyed glare, and clinging to her was Nora, tears streaming down her puffy face, looking like someone had just beat her up in an alley.

"...well?" Ruby demanded.

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

 _to be continued..._


	4. Jaune comes clean

"I don't know what to say…," said Jaune, staring dumbly at his distraught teammate, "...I-I thought-"

"You thought what, that Nora's face needed some rearranging?" It wasn't often Ruby got angry, and not to extant Yang tended to get (she called it getting "Yangry"), but suddenly waking up to the sound of Jaune sitting atop Nora, punching her in the face for no conceivable reason...yeah, that was a good reason to get worked up. "You're lucky we weren't heavier sleepers."

Jaune's face scrunched up in frustration as he tried to explain himself. "...look, I wasn't trying to hit Nora-"

"Some of us would beg to differ," Ren said; it didn't take a genius to figure out who he meant with that statement.

"No-! I mean...I thought I was hitting someone else!"

That didn't make things sound any better.

"Jaune, that doesn't make this sound better," she helpfully informed the scraggly blonde.

Nora sniffled a bit, and Ruby hugged her a little tighter.

"No, that's not what I- _ugh_!" Jaune tugged against Ren's hold a bit. "Could let go of me already?" When the other boy refused he added "I promise I'm not gonna hit anyone else."

Ren seemed to mull it over for a minute before he released his hold on Jaune's arms, letting him once again move freely. "Maybe you should start from the beginning," the dark haired young man suggested.

"You've been acting weird ever since we set up camp," Ruby pointed out, "How about you start there?" By her reckoning it was around then that everyone started acting weird (except for Uncle Qrow, but maybe that was because he was _always_ a little weird), with Jaune being the first. She suspected something happened when he, Ren and Nora went to look for supplies, so hopefully she'd get an answer.

Jaune sat cross legged and pulled up some grass to play with. "Well…," he began, "when I split up with Ren and Nora to gather firewood I was looking in this house when…." The strain of bringing himself to recall what happened was clearly visible on his face. "...I thought I got attacked by...Pyrrha's dead body…."

That was...not what Ruby was expecting to hear. Ren either, by how shocked he looked. Unfortunately, she could still perfectly recall Pyrrha's last moments, and how her glowing ashes scattered on the wind; there wasn't a body left to suddenly reanimate itself, much less appear so far away from the place she died. Granted Jaune didn't know this yet, as the only person she'd revealed all of that to was Uncle Qrow, and only then because he'd pressed her for everything she could remember after she woke up from her brief coma.

It wasn't a subject she liked thinking about….

"And just now," he continued, "I...I must have been having a dream or something, because she kept telling me that it was Ruby's fault she died and that I should kill her because she was holding me back or something, I don't really remember."

Ruby breath caught in her throat. Someone- ...no, some _thing_ had tried to have Jaune kill her while she was sleeping? The idea was...more scary than she thought it would be.

"That was when I realized the thing next to me _wasn't_ Pyrrha, and I guess I got mad and started punching." He let go of the grass and looked up at the rest of them, "I swear, I didn't even know Nora was asleep next to me until Ren pulled me back just now!"

Thankfully Ren took the lead talking to Jaune since she was still trying to process the fact that something apparently wanted her dead, and had tried to use one of her friends to accomplish that goal and was tuning most of the world out at the moment. _Was this some kind of Grimm?_ she wondered, _I don't remember learning about any that could do this kind of thing, and we_ definitely _haven't fought anything like that._... _Qrow did say I was special because of my eyes, but I don't know who else knows about that either! Ugh!_

Shaking the conundrum away for the moment she instead focused on Nora. The girl had calmed down considerably now, and was now paying attention to the conversation her two guy friends were having; she still had tear stains running down her cheeks, and her face slightly puffy, but otherwise she seemed to be fine. Well, as fine as someone could be after being punched in the face repeatedly, but still.

"Hey, Nora?" Jaune suddenly turned to face the usually bubbly girl, "I'm sorry for attacking you. ...I don't know what came over me, but I _swear_ I'd never do that kind of thing to you, no matter how mad I might get!" He held a hand out at his side. "Still friends?"

Nora seemed to consider this for a moment before getting up and grasping the proffered hand, nodding. "Apology accepted, Jaune." She gave a cheeky grin, "But you're still not getting off easy; I'm calling you 'Vomit Boy' for the next month."

Jaune chuckled, "I can live with that."

Seeing there were no hard feelings between Jaune and Nora put Ruby's mind a little more at ease; not enough to make her forget her potential brush with death, enough that she was able to crack a little bit of a smile at the pained but relieved expression on Jaune's face as Nora squeezed his hand.

Still, things appeared to be patched up, and it was still the middle of the night, so they should probably get more rest before heading to Haven.

 _Just a quick check on Uncle Qrow before we do. Seriously, I'm surprised he didn't wake up from any of that just now..._

"I'm just gonna check on Uncle Qrow real quick, but we should get some rest before morning," Ruby announced, which caused everyone to look at her curiously.

"What are you talking about?" asked Ren.

"Uh, you know, so we're not tired when we start heading to Haven tomorrow-"

"Not that," Nora interrupted, "that other thing you said."

"...you mean checking on Qrow? I was gonna make sure his wound didn't get any worse."

"Who's 'crow'?" Jaune asked, very clearly having having trouble wrapping his mind around what she was saying.

"You guys know him!" Ruby insisted, "He's my uncle: kinda scruffy looking, wears a cloak like me, usually smells like booze?"

Her three friends all shook their heads.

"Sorry Ruby, not ringing any bells," Nora said.

"He's been traveling with us for the past week, and he was following for a while before that!" _What's up with everyone? It's like when Yang pretends she doesn't know about the weapons I used to tell her about- wait!_ "Guys, if this is some kind of joke…!"

"We're not joking, Ruby; there's no one here but us." At this Ren gestured around then. "We certainly haven't found anyone else here, nor have we met anyone on the road."

"But he's right over-!" Frustration building, Ruby whirled around to where she remembered her uncle was sleeping, but when she turned around all she saw was a patch of ground where their supplies were stacked. "But, h-he was right there…."

"Ruby…," Jaune walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder, "we've traveling on our own for six months."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

 _to be continued..._


	5. Connecting the threads

" _UNCLE QROW…!_ " Ruby called as she ran through the moonlit ruins of Kuroyuri. The rest of Team RNJR followed after her, though more because their friend kept running around, shouting for someone she apparently thought she knew.

 _They're wrong, they have to be!_ This had to be some tasteless joke Qrow was playing on her; Ruby _refused_ to believe that he hadn't been with them the past week, or that he'd simply up and stopped existing. The most likely explanation was that he's turned into a bird and was staying out of sight, but with how injured he was and how distraught she sounded she doubted he would let himself remain hidden for very long. _Dammit, I'll buy you the most expensive booze I can afford if you just answer back!_

There was also the possibility that he was dragged (figuratively dragged; there weren't any kind of marks on the ground where he'd been sleeping) off by someone or something while the commotion with Jaune was going on, but she wouldn't know that for sure until she found him or not.

But none of that explained why her friends where acting like he hadn't been traveling with them for the past week.

"Ruby, slow down!" Jaune called, running to keep up with her, "We don't know what else is out here!"

"Not until I find my uncle!" she called back. Even if it took the whole night she wouldn't stop looking. _I'm not crazy; everyone was acting normal before we went to sleep, so whatever took Qrow away probably did something to us to make us forget about him...except for me, but that's not important right now!_

While not as big as Vale, Kuroyuri was still a city, and Ruby didn't have an idea where to start; she was just running in the hope that she'd stumble over a clue. Not the bright lest if plans, but it was all her panicked mind could think of in the moment.

Despite its desolation there were still a fair number of buildings that still looked intact, so she quickly ran to one and, with surprising ease, ripped the door open and proceeded to zip from room to room in search of her missing uncle. She could vaguely hear her friends calling her name from outside.

Inside the house everything looked eerily untouched, like whoever lived here had just stepped out, save for the thick layer of dust everywhere. Ignoring grime covered homely touches Ruby opened every door and peeked behind piece of furniture or appliance, feeling more and more frustrated when each new location turned up empty.

And all the while she grew increasingly more worried about her uncle's well being. She wouldn't be as concerned if he hadn't taken such a serious wound in that fight with the scorpion Faunus, but he had and she had no idea where he could be or where to start looking. She'd been nearly inconsolable when Yang hid Crescent Rose from her one time (lessons had been learned that day), but when it came down to it weapon's could be replaced; Qrow was a person, and people didn't just magically come back when they died. They were only here once and that was it, and Ruby didn't want _another_ reminder of that fact.

Not this time, not if she could help it.

Eventually she got fed up with her fruitless search and headed for the front door, only to nearly run into Jaune, who was standing just outside the threshold with Nora and Ren.

"Jaune, please move," she asked, trying to shift past him.

He just stepped in her path. "Ruby, your uncle isn't here," he said, "it's just been us for the last few months."

"Maybe you were having a nightmare?" Nora put forth, to which Jaune nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, it was probably what was giving me that dream about Pyrrha."

It wasn't that; she'd been dreaming about Team RWBY all having cat ears and tails and doing typical catlike things, but she didn't know how to articulate that information without sounding childish. _...even if I try to explain it, it makes sense why Jaune and them would think that._ Ugh _, why is this happening?_

"If poking around will help ease your mind then there's no harm," Ren stepped in diplomatically. Ruby was about to protest that looking for boogeyGrimm wasn't the issue, but Ren held up a finger before should could, "but _only_ if we all stick together; it's possible there really is something here we haven't encountered yet, so wouldn't it be better we if we're all there to deal with it together?"

That made sense too….

"Fine…," she relented. "But I'm not crazy, Qrow was with us just a few hours ago; you guys are acting like he doesn't exist anymore!"

"I mean, we never met him," Jaune pointed out, "It's not that we don't think he exists, but we haven't met anyone like the man you described earlier since we started this journey."

 _But we have!_ she wanted to shout, _Why don't you guys remember!?_ It was honestly getting past the point of funny (not that it was that funny to begin with, mind) how they seemed to be incapable of believing her about her uncle, and no matter what facts she threw at her friends nothing succeeded in getting past whatever barriers if willful ignorance they put up. _There has to be_ something _I can say to make them realize that there's something up here, but what?_

She wracked her brain for _anything_ to say as Jaune lead her away, saying something about keeping an eye on her in case something happened. It had to be something that they learned recently, after they hooked up with Qrow, something they only knew because they met up with him. Something that all of them knew about….

"...Why were the Huntsman academies established?" she asked as Jaune and the others fell into step. "And I don't just mean to train people like us, I mean the _other_ reason."

"Um..what?" Nora glanced at the younger girl, one eyebrow raised in a curious slant, "Why ask that all of a sudden?"

"Yeah," Jaune nodded, "it's kinda random-"

She quickly cut in "Guys! Just answer my question, please?" She put on her most pleading whimper, the kinda usually reserved for when Yang or her dad were being hesitant when she wanted something. "...please?"

She already knew the answer, of course: they were established to train future Huntsmen and Huntresses to keep the kingdoms of Remnant safe from the Creatures of Grimm, as well as to guard four "relics" that were apparently the key to defeating someone called "Salem". Qrow had explained that to the four of them (at Jaune's insistence) after the fight with that scorpion Faunus, so Ruby was sure that the others still remembered it, not to mention a story about two brothers who apparently created the world.

And they only knew any of that because _Qrow_ was the one who told them.

Ren was the first to speak up. "It was to protect the four Relics, right?" Jaune and Nora also hummed their agreement at the statement.

Ruby's eyes lit up. That was it! "And who told us about it?" She waited for them to answer.

"Pfft, easy!" Nora scoffed, "It was…." Whatever cockiness she thought she had quickly evaporated as she tried to recall the information. "Huh...who _was_ it?"

Jaune scratched his head. "...I don't remember."

"And _how long ago_ were we told that?" If the situation weren't so dire Ruby would have allowed her smug grin to stretch between both ears. "I'll give you guys a hint: it was after we fought that crazy scorpion guy."

"Yeah, how'd we survive that, anyway?" Jaune wondered, "He was kicking our butts pretty hard."

"Why are you asking us all this?" Ren asked, and Ruby could make out the genuine curiosity in his voice; gone were the patronizing tones that were thrown about earlier.

They were starting to realize something was up now. Perfect!

"Because there's something going on here that took Uncle Qrow and is marking you guys forget about him somehow," she explained, "and if he wasn't here with us you wouldn't be having so much trouble answering the stuff I asked about." She turned to each of her friends, "And whatever that something is, it's affecting you too; why else would Ren and Nora snap at each other like that-"

The two offending teens blushed with guilt.

"-or Jaune be seeing visions of Pyrrha? We need to find this thing, get Uncle Qrow, and then get out of Kuroyuri. That sound good to you guys?"

Jaune, Nora and Ren looked at each other in silent conference as Ruby held her hand out. Ruby was confident they would go along with the new plan; how could they not after she pretty much proved that Qrow had been with their group and had disappeared? At the very least she got her friends thinking. Whatever was causing all this to happen was still something of a mystery, but maybe now they'd all be a little more on guard going forward.

It didn't take long for them to turn back to her, nodding resolutely. "You're our leader, Ruby," Jaune said, "we'll follow you."

"You're right about something going on," added Ren, "we should find the cause and put a stop to it; the next person to end up here may not be as capable as we are."

"We'll break its legs, find your uncle, then skedaddle!" Nora brandished her weapon, shifting it to its hammer form and tapping it against her palm. She also wore her trademark manic grin.

Ruby couldn't help but smile. "So...you guys believe me about Qrow?"

"Well...I still don't remember him being with us, but maybe the thing that made Ren and me fight each other made us forget about him," Nora explained, shrugging. "You're not the type to make stuff up like this, so there's no reason not to trust you."

 _Well, it's still better than nothing…._ She looked expectantly at Ren and Jaune.

"Yeah, what Nora said," Jaune answered, pointing at the bubbly hammer wielder. Ren hummed his agreement.

" _Perfect!_ " Ruby exclaimed. _Don't worry Uncle Qrow, help is on the way!_ "Now, I think I have an idea where to start looking…."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

The silver eyed one was good, but that was to be expected.

Success wasn't won in an instant, a fact so many of its brethren were never able to grasp. Against prey that could fight back it was guile and cunning that filled your bellies and earned you praise, not simply rushing in at the first sign of negativity.

Sadly, many of its brethren were slain before they could realize that, but not it; it understood patience, and had survived untold years being smart.

And it had been untold years since the last silver eyes one had been devoured….

Now that this one was looking for it, more effort would be needed to capture its meal. Not that it would be a problem, since the bait was already wrapped up and waiting for the silver eyes one and its companions to find it.

A low, sinister chuckle echoed through its lair, a figure that could have once been human reclining against the Bait, plucked from the mind of one of the meals.

" _Come to me_ , _little morsels_ …."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

 _to be continued..._


	6. The Snap

Jaune gulped apprehensively as Team RNJR stood in front of the house where he'd first encountered Pyrrha's apparition.

"Y-you're sure about this?" he asked. He didn't think it was too crazy that he wasn't exactly keen on going back inside, especially since...whatever it was that attacked him the first time was probably still here; none of them had made a sweep of the upper floor where it happened, and he didn't blame them, considering what state he was in at the time.

"This is where it happened, right?" Ruby gestured to the building, Ren and Nora nodding their affirmation. "So then this is probably where that thing was staying until you come along. It probably made a lair here somewhere, so we just need to find that and we find where my uncle is."

Ren made some comment about whether Ruby's logic had any faults in it, but Jaune tunes it out. He was more focused on the other thing the younger girl had said, the one about _him_ ; things had been fairly peaceful after they slew that horse and rider Grimm, up until he'd gotten the bright idea to look around this place. If he'd just kept his damn curiosity under control….

And this wasn't the first time he'd bungled things up, either. There'd been many times over the past months where he'd been all but useless during a fight, going all the way back to the fall of Beacon when he'd allowed himself to be shoved into a locker when his partner need him most. And even before that he usually needed his friends' help when he'd run into problems.

The more he thought about it, the more he was realizing how much of a liability he was.

" _Hey Jaune!"_ The sudden sound of Ruby calling for him broke him out of his stupor. She and the others were standing inside the entrance, and was waving at him. "Come on, we need you in here!"

With a sigh he trudged forward, wishing he were back home with his dad and mom and seven sisters, relaxing in the den while all his siblings argued over what to watch on television. Maybe once they reached Haven he'd see if he could call his family and let them know he was alright.

In fact...maybe he should just forget about the quest and go back home for real. He wasn't as powerful as Nora, not as agile as Ruby, and he didn't even have a Semblance, even one with zero attack power like Ren's.

...eh, he still needed to deal with the whatever before that.

"Coming…."

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

"Well, this is where it happened," Jaune indicated, gesturing to the closet door atop the stairs. By all accounts it appeared to be a normal linen closet, albeit in a slightly decrepit state, something you could find in pretty much any house and not think twice about it.

 _Except this one_ isn't _normal…._

Ruby couldn't sense anything particularly malevolent about it, at least not any more so than the entire rest of Kuroyuri; that prevalent feeling of unease that seemed to hang over the ruined town hadn't lessened at all, so there was the possibility that something was up with the closet and she just wasn't able to fully tell, but they also hadn't been attack by a zombified Pyrrha when they'd approached it either, so that seemed like a fairly solid indicator.

"Seems normal to me," Nora pointed out, "...maybe we should open it?"

Ren gave a brief shrug. "I suppose so, unless anyone thinks simply staring at will give us our answers?"

It wouldn't, Ruby knew it. She drew Crescent Rose from its holster, shifting it into its gun mode. "Just in case," she explained, and nodded to Jaune. He grabbed the handle and rugged the door open, quickly stepping to the side.

Both Nora and Ren also had their weapons out, but only turned out they weren't needed; the only thing in the closet was a layer of dust and the remains of some shelves on the floor. No zombie Pyrrha, no Grimm, not even an indication that any small animals had once used this space for their home.

Experimentally, Ruby inches forward and poked the closet walls with the top of Crescent Rose's barrel, testing to see if any were hollow. They weren't. She tried the floor next: still nothing. She looked up: she could just make out the stars through some holes that were in the ceiling.

"Nothing," she summarized, "Whatever was here before must have gone somewhere else." She put her weapon away and turned to the others, "Let's check out the rest of the hou-"

Without warning the floor she was standing on gave way and collapsed, plummeting her down into a narrow space that barely gave her any room to move. On top of that the space overrun with cobwebs, many of which now clung to her person.

 _Gross gross gross gross gross!..._ Through some hidden strength of will she held back the panic that would have caused her to scream. (She may have shrieked when she fell, not important.) Ruby didn't like things going on her face at the best of time: it always felt icky and weird and tended to make her look like a clown and _yes it does, Yang! How can you stand this all the time?_

Needless to say, Ruby didn't want to stay in here if she could help it.

"Uh...guys," she called, unsuccessfully trying to wriggle herself free, "a little help? I'm kinda stuck down here…."

" _You OK?"_ Nora called back, quickly backpedaling after a second. " _What am I saying,_ of course _you're OK; you wouldn't be asking for help if you weren't!"_

" _Are you injured?"_ Ren thoughtfully clarified.

Was she? Nothing hurt, and moving wasn't painful, just heavily restricted.

"I think I'm fine, but I can't really move around much." On the off chance this could all be solved right now Ruby asked "Do any of you have a rope?"

" _I'm afraid not; neither Nora or I thought to grab one before we came here."_

"What about Jaune?"

" _Who?"_ wondered Nora, " _He your boyfriend or something?"_ Then she gasped, " _Did you get yourself a boyfriend and not tell anyone? Ruby, you sly dog…!~"_

A chill washed over her. _It happened again…._

" _Can you see a door anywhere?"_ Ren asked, clearly trying to keep things on track, " _It looks like you fell straight down, so you're probably in a cupboard of some kind."_

She wanted to yell at them, to convince them that she wasn't just imagining Jaune and something had taken him and was making them forget about him like when it happened to Qrow...but some small part of her mind told her that it wouldn't accomplish anything, and that it was more important to find what was causing this and stop it. If they found the cause, then they'd find their missing friend and relative, and they could get as far away from Kuroyuri as possible.

She didn't want to imagine the possibility of them _not_ being found, or worse, being dead.

Per Ren's instruction Ruby looked and felt around as best she could, considering the circumstances. She quickly discovered that she couldn't turn her head very much, and though Ren and Nora were shining lights from their Scrolls down the hole it was only enough for her to tell that everything was covered in webs. Feeling around wasn't exactly pleasant due to the webs, but it did manage to reveal a small latch that she wasn't able to get a good grip on.

"There's a latch or something on one of the walls!"

" _Good."_ The lights went off one after the other, " _We'll be right down, hang on."_

"OK…." It had been more a reflex that she'd agreed to that, because _really_ , what else could she do right now but stay put? Play games on the Scroll she couldn't reach? Take a nap? Talk to herself about cute boys?

There were only so many plausible activities one could do when one was stuck in a cupboard.

After what seemed like minutes with no sign of rescue Ruby started to get a little worried. It shouldn't have taken them more than a minute to find the door, and it had been what: three? Five? Ten minutes now without even the thunder of her friends coming down the stairs? She really didn't want to believe it, but with Jaune abruptly disappearing just now and the longer she had to wait the more likely it got that one or both of them had met the same fate.

 _Oh gawd, where are they?_ she wondered, anxiety building with each passing second. _Did it get them? It got Jaune, so maybe- No, bad Ruby! They didn't get taken and erased from existence! ...maybe they're just arguing over whether Nora should smash the door down or not?_

She wasn't convincing herself of that, even though it was a likely reason for the delay in her rescue.

 _...no, cuz I'd hear them if they if they were arguing. Well, I'd hear_ Nora _at least._

Another few minutes passed and Ruby remained trapped in the tight cupboard with only her thoughts and the cobwebs for company. It was hard not to worry in her position, and all attempts to distract herself were ultimately unsuccessful.

 _Geez, I feel like I'm in the Harriet Porter books,_ she mused in a moment of glibness. _She lived under the stairs, too…wait a minute!_ She immediately began going over every book she could remember reading, trying to recall if there was anything in them that could give her a clue as to what was going on. Most stories were fairly cut and dry, with the Hero fighting a monstrous Grimm, and most of the time it was an Ender Drake they were fighting, saving the day in a glorious fashion; they rarely ever went into too much detail about the Grimm other than to extol how terrifying and monstrous they were. Still, there were a couple instances where the Heroes faced an enemy other than warship sized monsters. There was one story where the hero fought a seemingly endless horde of Beowolves, one where they were really injured and had to escape a Deathstalker, one where...well, that one wasn't important. _...OK, maybe I need to read more books._

Eventually she ran through all of the books she could remember reading, still not any closer to figuring out what was going on. She was scared, bored, she felt icky, useless, she felt like crying, and on top of it all she _really_ needed to go to the bathroom!

Just when she felt like she was about to lose bladder control, something banged against the wall to her left. Then it happened again. And again. Every couple of seconds another impact would sound, shaking her diminutive exclosure.

" _...Ruby?"_ came a muffled voice from the other side, " _You OK in there?"_

"Nora?" _Oh thank gawd!_ "What's going on? Where were you?"

" _Everything's fine; we just got a little lost looking for the cupboard."_

Really? Ruby didn't recall the the layout of the house being that complex, but she was finally going to get out of this uncomfortable situation, so she wasn't going to complain. "Can you get me out of here? Not really a fan of cobwebs…."

" _Sure, just give me a minute."_

The banging resumed, this time more intense, but now that Ruby knew it was one of her friends it didn't bother her as much. "Just be careful you don't hit me!" she reminded the hammer wielding girl.

" _I will!"_

Sure enough it didn't take long for Nora to break through the cupboard, the door tearing a bunch of the webs away with it as it was yanked open. Empty, silken casings fell to the ground now that there was nothing holding them back, many of them crunching under Ruby's weight as she herself fell free.

"Are you ok?" Nora asked, helping the younger girl to her feet, "We were worried you might have been hurt."

"Just my- _pfft!_ \- pride," she spat, wiping herself down if any remaining cobwebs. She wasn't a big fan of spiders to begin with, and this incident had done little to endear them to her, if anything. In fact, she may have actually grown a small appreciation for Weiss's almost obsessive adherence to cleanliness. She looked up and got worried all over again when she noticed it was only her and Nora in the immediate area. "...where's Ren?" she asked hesitantly, dreading the answer.

"He's fine; he found a way underground and went to investigate it. He told me to bring you went I got you free."

 _This place has a basement?_ Ruby wondered. It made sense, since the area where Kuroyuri was bout seemed stable enough. She'd just never really thought about whether the houses had basements, though in her defense other things had taken precedence until now. Like fighting that weird horse and rider Grimm.

She nodded to her friend, "Let's go then, we shouldn't split up if we can help it." Nora nodded back and pointed to one of the rooms further back.

"It's right through there."

Eager to reunite what remained of Team RNJR and a little curious about what Ren found she headed back, Nora following after her. _If Ren found a basement to this place...then maybe that where whatever is messing with us is hiding! Jaune did see that phantom Pyrrha here after all...and maybe it's where it took Jaune and Uncle Qrow! Hang on, guys, the cavalry's-_

By the time the pain registered she was already falling over and seconds away from losing consciousness.

The last thing she saw were a familiar pair of bronze greaves that descended into heeled boots.

The last thing she heard was a familiar voice, both sweet and snide and dripping with sarcasm say " _I_ ' _m sorry…-"_

 _to be continued…._


	7. It all comes together

Ruby awoke with a start and was immediately bombarded by a rancid smell, like compost mixed with low tide, reflexively scrunching her nose and squinting her eyes back shut. _Ugh, what reeks?_

After a moment she opened her eyes again, and wished she hadn't; from what little she could make out she was in some kind of cave, and similar to the cupboard everything was covered in spiderwebs. The scant light that allowed her to still see (were circumstances different she would have wished for the Faunus' ability to see in the dark) cane from some kind of Dust lamps, and were the only thing that wasn't covered in webbing.

There were also a cluster of what looked like cocoons of to one side of the cave, which Ruby felt it best not to think too much about.

 _OK…,_ she thought, trying not to panic, _I_ really _hope this is a dream and I'll wake up snug in my bed at home, with dad and Yang laughing over who can make the worst pun._

She made to pinch herself, but quickly found she was unable to move her arms. In fact, now that her senses were coming back she could feel herself hanging, something soft and fine holding her up by her wrists. She was still on the ground, so she tried to stand up to relieve the strain on her arms, only to find that her feet were secured in such a way that she could find a balance, and so ultimately gave up after a few more tries.

"...Nora?" she called into the darkness, "Ren…? Jane…? Uncle Qrow…? _Is anyone there?!_ "

Silence.

"Where is everyone…?" she whispered.

" _The other humans are still alive_ ," a voice said from the darkness, "... _for now_ , _at least_."

Ruby fought to keep herself from gasping in fright; the voice managed to sound like evil itself, somehow sounding comforting and spine chilling all at once, not to mention eerily, distressingly familiar. A voice she thought she would never hear again.

"...Pyrrha?"

The voice chuckled. " _That was what this human was called_ , _wasn't it_? _I honestly couldn_ ' _t care enough to remember_ , _since I rarely leave my food sitting around for very long_ …."

"Food"? She dreaded to learn what the voice meant by that, even though she already had a pretty good idea.

"W-where are you?" she asked, trying to sound braver than she felt, "If you're gonna talk to me, at least let me see you!"

It chuckled again, and something started moving in the shadows. " _My my_ , _you really are a brave one_ , _aren_ ' _t you_?"

She wasn't, but right now she couldn't afford _not_ to be.

" _Very well_ , _I suppose there_ ' _s no harm_." And soon a familiar silhouette strode forward, revealing its form once it stepped into the light.

Ruby hadn't ever actually seen a dead body before and only one every now and then on this journey, but even she could tell that the figure that stood before her shouldn't be alive, and not just because she knew there hadn't been a body left over when Pyrrha had been killed: her skin was a dull grey, with festering wounds dotting almost every bit skin not covered by her outfit, torn and tarnished and singed in many places. Embedded in her left ankle was a black arrow, which seemed to glow faintly, like embers in a fire.

Pyrrha's face was the most shocking of all. Like the rest of her body it was dull and lifeless, pocked with wounds, though half of her chin was missing, completely exposing the bones of her jaw, making her look much more ghoulish than Ruby thought the young champion could ever look. The effect was amplified by "Pyrrha's" expression, a mix between sweetness and...well, "devilishness" was the only word to come to mind.

" _Is this better_?" the apparition asked.

Ruby didn't say anything. She was too busy fighting back the flood of emotions from seeing "Pyrrha", and even if she wasn't she suspected that whatever that thing was, it wasn't actually expecting an answer from her.

" _It doesn_ ' _t matter_ ," it said, basically confirming the suspicion, " _since you_ ' _ll be my next meal before too long_."

 _That_...was majorly concerning.

"W-w-what do you mean?" she managed to ask.

" _I_ ' _ve lived for a very long time_ ," it said, " _and food is scarce_ : _sometimes_ years _go by without food and I need to hibernate to save my strength_. _I probably would have stayed hibernating if you and the other humans didn_ ' _t kill my brethren on the surface_." It leaned closer, causing Ruby to recoil in disgust when it grabbed her chin and forced her to look in its eyes. " _Imagine my surprise when I woke and discovered that the one to slay him was the tastiest treat of all_? _Silver humans are_ much _tastier than the normal variety_ ….~"

Through the revulsion of being touched by this thing her mind started putting the piece together. "...you're a Grimm, aren't you?"

" _I suppose you could say that_ ," it said, letting her go, " _though technically that_ ' _s_ your _word for us_." It sauntered over to the cluster of cocoons, "... _humans are fascinating creatures_ , _when you think about it_. _You actually go and name your food before your eat it_ , _I've always found that odd_ …." The fake Pyrrha then leaned against one of the cocoons and began caressing it. " _The only thing I and my brethren call are food is_ ' _delicious_ '!~"

The way Fake Pyrrha rubbed the silken pod was...it made her feel uncomfortable, and when it started rubbing Pyrrha's leg on the pod she felt like she needed an adult.

" _I don_ ' _t think you could comprehend how you humans taste to us_ ; _imagine the most delicious thing you can_ , _and how pleasurable it is to consume_ , _and it would still not be close to what_ I _feel when I consume one of you Silver humans_ …~!"

 _Now_ Ruby was starting to panic.

" _But that_ ' _s not to say I don_ ' _t enjoy a little appetizer before my meal_." The fake Pyrrha suddenly grabbed hold of a fistful of the cocoon and tore a large portion of it out, revealing an adult sized figure wrapped almost completely in silk. Fake Pyrrha then in and leaned the figure out of the hole she made and wiped a hand over its face, the motion somehow clearing away the silk, revealing an unconscious-

" _Uncle Qrow!"_ Ruby gasped, nearly leaping out of her bonds. She couldn't tell if he was alive or not, she was too far away and to frantic. _Oh my gawd, oh my gawd, oh my gawd! Is he OK? Is he alive? Where's everyone else, are they here too? How'd they get caught?_ Questions flew through her mind fast and furiously, her silken bonds cutting against her wrists and she struggled to break free and rush to her uncle's side.

" _I haven_ ' _t eaten him yet_ ," it said, " _it wouldn_ ' _t do to snack on the bait_ , _after all_. _Though I must say_ , _the misery all of them hold is positively_ exquisite! _You all hold very strong emotions for the human that died; I honestly wasn_ ' _t expecting such a feast to greet me_!~"

"The human that died". When Ruby heard the... _creature_ say those words it sent her blood boiling. Pyrrha was a great person: kind, loving, steadfast, a good listener, amazingly talented in battle, and selfless to a fatal degree, and this thing, this _evil_ was just going to wear her skin and dismiss her sacrifice like she nothing more than a statistic?

That made her _angry._

"Her name is 'Pyrrha'," she said to the doppelgänger, her voice trembling on the edge of rage. In a moment all her panic and fear vanished, replaced with the desire to make this fake Pyrrha go away!

It chuckled, sickeningly sweet, and in an instant it seemed to rapidly unravel and reform right in front of her face.

" _You humans are funny_ ; _it_ ' _s no use trying to convince me to care more about my food than I do. Many have tried before you in a vain attempt to escape my web_ , _and they were delicious._ " It pat Ruby on the cheek condescendingly, " _They were the most fun to play with_."

It's touch once again sent Ruby's skin rippling, and she had to fight against the overwhelming, almost instinctive revulsion to keep glaring at the Pyrrha shaped monster.

" _Don_ ' _t be like that_ ," it admonished, " _I_ ' _m just acting according to my nature_. _I can_ ' _t help it if I was created to be like this_."

"There's _nothing_ natural about you!" she spat.

Further retorts were silenced when Ruby felt a prick on the back of her neck.

"Ow!"

The monstrosity gave wicked smirk and let go. " _Whether you believe me or not_ , _I_ am _enjoying the conversation I_ ' _m having with you_. _However_ , _I_ ' _m getting hungry_ , _so I_ ' _ll have to cut this short_."

"What did you-…?" Without warning Ruby's vision started to swim and she had trouble thinking clearly. It came out of nowhere, and she couldn't shake away the disorientation no matter how much she flailed her head around, which wasn't much because that just made everything worse. "...wha...didjyou do to me…?"

" _Oh_ , _I just gave you a little something of mine to help you be a bit more compliant_." As it spoke it seemed to shift between the stolen image of Pyrrha and something else that Ruby couldn't quite make out, yet despite that it filled her with a sensed dread somehow familiar but distinct from the monster that imprisoned her. " _Hmm_... _and it seems that you have an even more troubling memory than the male did_."

Did she? She wasn't sure, it was getting harder to think clearly.

" _Oh my_ , _this is_ scrumptious! _And here I thought you couldn_ ' _t taste any better_!"

Strangely, the more woozy Ruby felt the more clear the creature became and she could more easily make out its new form.

And unfortunately, it was one that burned itself on her memory forever: dark hair, a cocky smile, a red, strapless dress, and amber eyes that glowed with a sense of power and victory, and all of it wreathed in locking flames. This was the woman who killed Pyrrha.

 _Cinder Fall._

"You…!"

" _I must say_ ," the creature remarked, it's voice now sounding disturbingly similar to Cinder's, " _you are quite possibly the tastiest thing I_ ' _ve eaten in a long_ , _long time_!~" It states to reach out to Ruby, " _I may just dispose of the others who were with you_ , _it_ ' _s not like they could even compare to this anguish within you_ , _anyway_!"

The scene changed; Ruby wasn't trapped in some web covered anymore, now she was standing atop a ruined Beacon, having just arrived at the aftermath of Pyrrha and Cinder's battle. The former was on her knees, the shaft of an arrow sticking out of her ankle, and was sans her weapons. She was looking up at Cinder, who held a hand to the young Huntress's face.

Then Pyrrha started to fade, her body dissolving into embers that the wind carried away.

She was watching Pyrrha die all over again!

" _NOOOOOOO!_ " she screamed, as though trying to reject reality itself. And as she screamed she felt something burning behind her eyes, like there was a fire that was trying to escape from inside. She tried scrunching her eyes shut on reflex, but this only made the burning sensation more intense and they shot open, releasing the building energy in a single burst. She thought she heard an inhuman shriek, but whatever what creature did to her was still making her woozy, so she couldn't really tell if she'd imagined it or not. She felt herself fall forward, and the scene before her changed back to the web covered cave. She was laying on the ground, feeling exhausted; the monster appeared to have vanished.

As she stood up something managed to click: _she wasn't bound by the sister webs anymore!_ She was free! And in this moment of lucidity she was suddenly aware of her surroundings again, and of the cocoons against the other wall. She didn't know where the creature had gone and didn't really care: Ruby had a chance to free everyone else and she was going to take it.

She leapt to her feet, and almost immediately face planted not ever five feet forward. She couldn't tell if it was because of the way she'd been hanging or what just happened with her eyes but every part of her body felt sluggish, like she'd been exercising with Nora for hours.

 _Oh come on, not now! Work, legs! I only need you for a few minutes!_ It was a struggle to even move her mutinous limbs, and it felt like it took years, but somehow she manage to stand up under her own power. It was more accurate to say she tripped forward rather than walked, but she reached the cocoons and set about tearing them open before she lost consciousness.

This proved more difficult than she thought it would be. The silk was very tightly woven together, which made it nearly impossible to rip apart like she'd seen Fake Pyrrha do; even Uncle Qrow's cocoon wouldn't give, despite already being partly open.

"Come _on_ ," she pleaded, "just _open_ already!"

It didn't take long for her head to start swimming again, this time nearly causing her to fall over from how dizzy it made her.

"Dammit...not now! I need to…!" It was getting harder to think clearly, her brief moment of lucidity now waning. She _needed_ to do something fast, before whatever poison that was coursing through her body knocked her out completely. And with how exhausted she felt, it was probably going to happen sooner rather than later.

There was only one solution she could think of that would get everyone free: she couldn't pull the cocoons apart, but maybe Crescent Rose was sharp enough to cut through the silk. With practiced ease Ruby drew her weapon from its holster and shifted it to its scythe form, holding it above her head. Her arms and legs threatened to collapse under the added weight of the weapon, but she needed to free everyone- ...no, _she couldn't afford to let them die_.

Not like Pyrrha….

With a mighty heave and a wordless cry she swung her scythe down. It was a clumsy slice with nowhere near the usually precision she was capable of. At first nothing seemed to happen- she wanted to slice open the other three cocoons at the same time, but with how poor her swing was it was clear that wasn't going to happen- but then one of the pods split vertically, spilling Jaune onto the floor.

What remained of Ruby's strength left her as Crescent Rose clattered to the ground, its wielder following immediately. It was an uphill battle just to keep her eyes open, like her eyelids were made of lead. Her arms and legs weren't much better, barely able to crawl two feet ahead without feeling ready to collapse and let sleep take her.

 _Need to...make sure he's OK…._ He wasn't moving, and with how much her vision swam it impossible to tell if he was breathing from so far away. She needed to get closer so she could hear him breath, to make sure he wasn't dead.

Twenty arduous seconds later Ruby pulled herself next to Jaune and pressed an ear to his chest.

 _Please please_ please _don't be dead…!_

It was faint, but she could hear the dull _lub-dub, lub-dub_ of his heartbeat, the soft sound of him exhaling, and because she was laying on top on him she could feel the slight rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

He was still alive!

"Jaune," she croaked, giving hima weak slap in his cheek, "wake up...you gotta... _hah_...you gotta help me…!"

She was rapidly losing strength now that the danger was passed and the adrenaline in her body wore off. The lead weights hanging from her eyelids had now; it wouldn't be long before she surrendered to sleep.

Jaune moaned a little.

In one last ditch effort Ruby grabbed his shoulders and shook him as hard as she could with her rapidly dwindling energy.

"Jaune, _please_...get every...one…."

It was too late. Her plea trailed off as she fell atop the scraggly young man, her reserves all but drained. She finally lost the battle to keep her eyes open, and before long sunk into the warm embrace of dreamland.

She could _swear_ the last thing she heard before fully losing consciousness was Jaune calling her name….

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

" _...by? ...Ruby? Hey, Ruby, wake up!"_

A voice managed to pierce through the veil of sleep and drag the young Huntress into the land of the waking. It was...familiar, like she she'd just heard it recently….

" _Mmrrr...Yang?_ " she guessed as her lucidity slowly returned to her.

" _Heh, wrong blonde,"_ the voice chuckled. " _Hey guys, she's waking up!"_

"Guys"? But, she was still at home, wasn't she? There wasn't anyone else there but her dad, Yang and Zwei. Confused, she decided that opening her eyes might be a good idea and, with only a bit of struggle, was greeted with brightness.

Once that faded she saw the smiling, relieved face of Jaune Arc looking down at her, Ren and Nora behind him peeking over his shoulders.

"Welcome back," Nora said, "you feel any better now?"

"You were resting quite soundly," noted Ren.

"Yeah, not even all the Bullheads landed woke you up."

Bullheads...what? _What the heck happened while I was out?_

"And don't worry," Ren added, "your uncle is fine, albeit a little surly."

Her uncle-? _Qrow!_

"Where is he?" she demanded, sitting up to get a better look around.

She regretted it almost immediately as she almost pitched forward to the ground. Luckily, Jaune caught her before that could happen.

"Whoa, take it easy, Rubes! He's fine, the doctors are with him."

Past him, Ruby could see a few people in medic uniforms pushing a stretcher towards a Bullhead, her uncle moaning on top and weakly swatting at a Faunus medic who was apparently trying to reassuring him he'd be fine.

"Is she awake yet?" one of the women in uniform asked, walked up to the group. She peered over Jaune's shoulder, "Ah, good. I was afraid we might have been too late; you slept right through our landing, young lady, we were worried you might have slipped into a coma."

She had? Everything was still hazy, like she'd dreamed it all happening. The last thing she could remember clearly was going to bed after washing the dishes, and then….

"...how long was I out?" she asked, her eyes pleading. (They also felt a little sore for some reason….)

"A few hours," Jaune said as he helped her to her feet. Now that she was standing Ruby could see sky was significantly brighter than it had been earlier: the sun was already rising, just starting to cast shadows on everything.

 _Was_ everything that happened just a dream? It felt like it was, but at the same time it felt like _something_ had happened, like it had after the fall of Beacon and-

 _...Pyrrha_. She'd somehow been a part of what happened. Ruby couldn't shake that feeling, nor could she shake the inexplicable connection she made to spiders. She knew Pyrrha wasn't overly fond of the critters (and that was putting it _very_ mildly) but surely that alone wasn't enough for such a poignant connection, was it? It hadn't even come up all that much when they knew her.

The reason was right on the edge of her mind, she could feel it, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't access the information she was sure would help everything make sense.

"You kids are super lucky," the medic woman said, piercing through her musing, "Notmally we try to avoid this area due to there being some especially dangerous Grimm that live here, and if it wasn't for the smoke we'd have just kept flying."

Smoke? What smoke? Ruby looked around, craning her neck behind her. Off in the distance there was a faint orange glow coming from behind some building, with a plume of black smoke rising from it.

She couldn't put a finger on why she felt a wave of relief wash over her at the sight.

"Anyway," the woman continued, "once we make sure your friend is OK-" She gestured to Ruby. "-we'll give you all a lift to Haven. That is where you said you were headed, right?"

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

The flight to Haven passed by mostly in silence, not that Ruby could blame everyone after what happened. Her friends had filled her in on what happened while she was unconscious. Apparently she'd fallen asleep on top of Jaune, who'd made fairly quick work of cutting everyone else free of the cocoons they were trapped in. After bringing her and Qrow outside they'd gone back in and set the whole place in fire. It had been Ren's idea, since Rachnae nests could be hard to find and properly clear out otherwise. "Besides," he'd said, "no one's using it anymore." A short time later they'd heard the sound of airships approaching.

The explanation helped fill in many of the gaps in her memory, though not all. She still couldn't recall how gotten from their campsite to that house, or why she fell unconscious in the first place. It was nagging, but the more she thought about it the less she actually wanted to know. One of the things she could remember clearly was everyone acting depressed and angry at each other, but they all seemed better now: Ren and Nora were now cuddling together, Jaune seemed less dower than he did before, and Qrow- ...well, he was taking a nap now, but had been talking the ear off one of the medic women, which was usually par for the course for him. At least, it was when he didn't smell like he took a shower in booze.

And now they were practically headed straight to Haven Academy; after the past few weeks she didn't begrudge her friends- or herself- the respite, however brief it turned out to be.

Feeling restless, Ruby stood up and stuck her head into the cockpit, calling to the pilot. "Excuse me, sir! Um, how long 'til we get to Haven?"

"I'd say about an hour," he said, "once we're done with our patrol. Sorry, but you're going to have to sit tight for a while." He glanced back at her. "Gotta say, I'm a little envious of your Huntsmen; we've been trying to take out the Nuckelavee for _years_ and you kids apparently killed it like it was nothing!"

Ruby blushed a little at the sudden praise. "Uh, 'Nucka-what'?" she asked in an attempt to deflect the attention off of her.

"' _Nuckelavee_ '," the pilot enunciated. "It's from an old folk tale around these parts; us rank and file guys have a bunch of names like that for Grimm of interest."

"Oh." _Huh, no kidding?_ She wondered what that Grimm that could process rock was called? "Well, I wouldn't say it was _nothing_ …." She scratched the back of her head.

"Maybe, but it's still impressive." Then he turned back to the sky ahead, "Good thing you guys weren't fighting Anansi, though."

Ruby didn't like that name; the instant she heard a feeling of dread washed over her. "What kind of Grimm is that?"

"Honestly? No one really knows for sure. It's mostly just speculation from reports of people suddenly disappearing; 'survivors' don't remember their companions, even though there's conclusive proof of these people existing. Since there are never any remains, the theory is it's some uncategorized Grimm that's able to lure people away without the others noticing and devouring them." He shook his head, "But nevermind all that. You probably want to relax, not listen to some flyboy talk about scary bedtime stories. Anyway, go ahead and let the others know it won't be an hour before we touch down."

"Yeah, sure…." Ruby made her way back to her seat, replaying what the pilot said over and over in her mind. All if it poked at the part of her memory that apparently locked itself away, and it frustrated her to no end that she couldn't remember _why_.

"Ruby?" Jaune asked as she sat back down, "What's up, you OK?"

"...Hmm?" She glanced up at him. "Oh, nah, I'm OK. The pilot said we'll get to Haven soon."

"Oh. Cool." He glanced over at Nora and Ren, who were still cuddling, "Think we should interrupt?"

"Nah," Ruby shook her head, "give 'em a few more minutes." She didn't want to intrude on their moment.

She'd just sit here, wishing she didn't ask about that Grimm….

 _fin._

_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/

 _And there you have it, folks! I've finally wrapped up this little distraction keeping me from working on "Accidents Happen". Y'all should see the next chapter of that [hopefully] sometime in April._

 _So you know how sometimes you just see or read a thing and suddenly you've already written the entire story? That's basically how 90% if the fix's I write happen, including this one, which came to life after I found some fanart if "Pyrrha"mid Head. (It's honestly super cool and I encourage people to look it up.) Of course it morphed and changed as I was writing it, but I feel the basic idea came through._

 _As you can probably guess from the title, the story was going to play out more like Silent Hill, with Team RNJR all confronting various tragedies in their lives, with Jaune's being a zombie Pyrrha. I guess that turned into "Grimm that could screw with people's minds", which I actually like more because I've wanted to try my hand at Vindictive Pyrrha for a while now. (I mean I've wasted to do a lot I of things with how Pyrrha would feel after dying, this just happened to be the first.) Plus I just couldn't resist the allusion to the classic Anansi fable, obviously with my own spin (heh, spider puns….) on it, or writing something an insert to an already existing story._

 _Anyway, off to start researching the intricacies of pregnancy again. As usual, follow me on my Tweeter " the_layman215" and elsewhere to keep up to date and watch some fun videos I make. (links are all in my pinned tweet)_


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